Alabama is attempting to become the first state to execute a prisoner by inhaling pure nitrogen. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office requested the state Supreme Court on Friday to set a date for the execution of death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. According to the court complaint, Alabama intends to execute him through nitrogen hypoxia, a form of execution that is legal in three states but has never been employed.
Nitrogen hypoxia occurs when an inmate is forced to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and killing them. Nitrogen makes up approximately 78% of the air we breathe and is completely harmless when combined with oxygen. While supporters of the new procedure claim it will be painless, detractors compare it to human experimentation.
Alabama legalized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 due to a lack of pharmaceuticals used in fatal injections
Alabama legalized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 due to a lack of pharmaceuticals used in fatal injections, but the state has not sought to utilize it to carry out a death sentence until today. Nitrogen hypoxia has also been permitted in Oklahoma and Mississippi but is yet to be implemented.
The announcement that Alabama is preparing to deploy nitrogen hypoxia is expected to spark a fresh round of legal disputes over the method’s constitutionality.
The Equal Justice Initiative, a legal advocacy group that has worked on death penalty issues, said Alabama has a history of “failed and flawed executions and execution attempts” and that “experimenting with a never before used method is a terrible idea.”
“No state in the country has executed a person using nitrogen hypoxia, and Alabama is in no position to experiment with a completely unproven and unused method for executing someone,” Angie Setzer, a senior attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative, said.
Last year, Alabama sought to execute Smith by lethal injection but put off the execution due to difficulties threading an IV into his veins. It was the state’s second such incident in two months after being unable to execute a convict, and its third since 2018. The following day after Smith’s aborted execution, Gov. Kay Ivey announced a pause on executions to conduct an internal review of lethal injection procedures. The state resumed lethal injections last month.
Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted
Smith was one of two men convicted in the murder-for-hire of a preacher’s wife in 1988. The Alabama attorney general urged that the death penalty should be carried out.
“It is a travesty that Kenneth Smith has been able to avoid his death sentence for nearly 35 years after being convicted of the heinous murder-for-hire slaying of an innocent woman, Elizabeth Sennett,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said Friday in a statement.
Alabama has been working on developing the nitrogen hypoxia execution method for some years but has revealed nothing about its objectives. The attorney general’s court filing did not go into detail about how the execution will take place. Last month, Corrections Commissioner John Hamm informed reporters that a plan was nearly finished.
A number of Alabama inmates, including Smith, who are fighting to block their executions by lethal injection have contended that they should be permitted to die through nitrogen hypoxia.
Smith’s attorney, Robert Grass, declined to comment on the issue.